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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27938823">And Don't Underestimate the Importance of Body Language</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaybella/pseuds/kaybella'>kaybella</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>If you give a Ship a Group Chat... [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, BoNfire Week 2020, Booker would gladly live alone in a lighthouse but fate keeps foiling his plans, F/M, Lykon is a centaur because it felt too right to ignore, Nile Freeman Has the Team's Only Brain Cell, Not!Fic, Selkies, no beta we die like the old guard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:21:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27938823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaybella/pseuds/kaybella</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A Not Fic about sad Booker in a lighthouse and Nile the kick ass Seal Woman who's like <i>you are proof that no one chooses to be a morosexual but damn I can't wait to kiss your entire face and have you make me crepes</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>If you give a Ship a Group Chat... [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And Don't Underestimate the Importance of Body Language</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>BoN Fête Day 3: Longest Night+Human Light /Loss, Compassion, and Hope</p><p>The reason I got dragged into Book of Nile hell (apart from Kiki Layne’s Glorious Legs) was that the idea of the two youngest members of the Guard bonding over their shared losses and helping each other to heal (thanks for the headcanons <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionsquare/pseuds/ionsquare"> @ionsquare </a> )  </p><p>Massive credit goes out to the Book of Nile group chat on tumblr, especially  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphinx81/pseuds/sphinx81"> sphinx81</a>  and  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/energievie/pseuds/energievie"> energievie</a>  who also contributed heavily to this, I mostly just de-chatfic'd it</p><p>Title from the The Little Mermaid cuz its the same age as me and Ursula is the baddest of all dem villain bitches</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Booker is a lonely lighthouse operator who sees ghosts. He didn't used to mind it so much but then his house burned down with his family inside and he broke both his legs trying to get himself and his youngest son outta the house but he ended up being the only survivor and he promptly stopped being okay with seeing the dead.</p><p> </p><p>His physical therapist told him that he needed to move around more (and drink less) so when the position at the local lighthouse opened up he went for it. That fact that it was a clear hour away from where his family had lived helps too.</p><p> </p><p>There are less ghosts at the shore because the ocean keeps it's dead, so after a few years he feels almost normal again. His (physical) therapist worries about him being alone all the damn time, but book promises that he'll get help if he starts seeing things (snerk) </p><p> </p><p>Nile is a selkie in pod that lives in the  local bay. Her kind are getting rare especially in Cold water, but the town is protective of the pod and keeps them relatively secret and safe from poachers and other assholes. </p><p> </p><p>When Booker first sees Nile he worries that He is going crazy but also figures that one hallucination is harmless. No one warned him about aquatic beings when he took the job and he knows <em> the ocean keeps it's dead </em> so she couldn't be a ghost. She's crazysexycool enough that he's gonna roll with it for the time being at least, because fuck it he could use some one to talk to more than once every two weeks.</p><p> </p><p>Nile knows this guy thinks she's not real but that's hardly something she can do anything about. She knows all the old lore about her kind being attracted to Lonely Souls to provide them comfort. So when she starts to get this yawning ache in her gut and no amount of fishing fixes it, she just does what the ocean tells her makes sense which is to hang out at a particular out crop around dusk everyday and sure enough this cute but careworn looking human shows up. He looks a little young for her but she can't do anything about the difference in their species lifespans</p><p>¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  </p><p> </p><p>The only real problem is that he refuses to accept that she's a real being and not some spectre that his mind conjured up because apparently humans can do that??? Regardless, she keeps going to the rock though and the uncomfortable void in her core gets smaller and smaller so she guesses it must be working out either way.</p><p> </p><p>She ends up on the shore in front of the lighthouse one night during a storm that separates her from her pod and leaves her concussed and bruised on the rocks. </p><p> </p><p>He leaves the lighthouse in the morning to see if he needs to do repairs and finds her outside.</p><p>He’s a little worried that the hallucinations are getting worse  but he can’t LEAVE HER THERE either</p><p>So he scoops her up and starts carrying her up the steps to the lighthouse but she starts convulsing as he enters the lighthouse and she just barely audibly groans about her skin and several things fall into place for our Himbeaux.</p><p> </p><p>He's heard the selkie legends but he thought they were literal seal women not women with aquatic tails, that sure I guess looked like seal tails but...  dammit he's been alone a while. And it figures that by staying partially submerged when she met with him it protected her seal skin too.</p><p> </p><p>So he goes back down to the rocks, gathers up her skin, and takes them both inside. Puts her in the bed and notices that the skin looks kinda dry and dehydrated. Unhealthy like, so he wraps her up in a blanket instead and puts the skin in the tub so it can be moisturized</p><p> </p><p>Nile wakes up and is warm and safe, but she's also in a house and fully has legs and her skin is nowhere to be seen and instead she's wrapped up in a blanket and.....</p><p>Like she likes the lonely guy who thinks she's not real she wouldn't mind staying with him beyond sundown but uhhh this was not what she signed up for.</p><p> </p><p>So our poor girl is Fully Pulling An Ariel, getting around on her shaky land legs, fully nude and unbothered but increasingly concerned and destructive as there are only so many places she can see to look and her skin is nowhere to be found</p><p> </p><p>And that's what Booker comes home to after leaving her to get food and medicine and clothes</p><p> </p><p>Clearly they speak the same language though Nile is effectively bilingual. Booker has never had any reason to hear what she sounds like underwater and like have you heard an angry /distressed seal??? Very Fucking Loud</p><p> </p><p>So Booker comes home to a apartment that looks like a drunk 3 year old was looking for its blanket and there is a gorgeous naked angry woman screaming at him about this is not how you are supposed to do things, I need to see my pod I cant just stay here plz let me go, I'm real Very FUCKING REAL and you need to LET ME GO.</p><p> </p><p>So very loud</p><p> </p><p>Nile is angry and terrified, Booker is overwhelmed and trying to keep his eyes in appropriate places. He quickly leads her to the bathroom door, which he locked and she grabs her skin and bolts.</p><p> </p><p>Nile heads back to the ocean and meets back up with her pod everyone was a bit worried cuz she disappeared in the storm and she wasn't on shore etc but their glad she's back and <em> ooh where ever you ended up must have been nice your tail looks great </em> , and Nile realizes that in her panic, she didn't even notice that Booker had fully like turned his tub into a brining pool to make sure that her skin stayed strong and healthy while she was out of it, which would in turn have helped her heal up faster too and she feels like a bit of a dick for jumping to conclusions and freaking out because he's never indicated that he would try to trap her, he barely acknowledged her as a real being, which not exactly <em> better </em> but a touch more understandable at least. </p><p> </p><p>She's explaining all this to Dizzy and Jay when her brother swims up and tells her <em>firstly that this guys sounds like an idiot and you have awful taste and also this guy is very possibly even more dumb than you or I thought cuz I'm pretty sure that he's in the surf trying to find you and his dumb ass is gonna get caught by a riptide.</em></p><p> </p><p>Nile hies away to go make sure her himbeaux doesn't drown while her bro goes to find their momma and tell her that Nile managed to find herself the most ridiculous human ever wouldn't ya know it</p><p> </p><p>Booker was pretty sure that he wasn't going to see Nile again, if it hadn't been for the hard proof of his destroyed flat and incredibly salty tub he'd be committing himself right about now. But in his defense he wasn't intending to go swimming it was more of a<em> the place where we usually meet is steep and I may have gotten too close to the edge where you would usually be and wouldn't you know it big rocks that sit in the sea and get splashed all day and night are slippery! </em></p><p> </p><p>Booker, feels like an idiot.</p><p> </p><p>Nile once again does an excellent impression of Ariel but has the banging ass sense to use her words (still and always my biggest fucking gripe with that movie) she asks him why he would jump in the surf when it's so choppy, he tells her</p><p>
  <em> It was an accident, I was looking for you, I wanted to apologize for scaring you, I never meant to do that, Please don't leave me, I like having you around, You make this job and really my whole life worthwhile and it's been a long time since I felt that way </em>
</p><p>and of course Nile melts (who wouldn't). She thanks him for taking such good care of her and offers to come back and see him that night which he accepts. Later, after they hook up which I will not even attempt to describe, she asks him <em> Why would you lock the bathroom if you weren't hiding my skin from me? </em></p><p>His response: <em> I know you can take care of yourself but I wanted to protect you the best way I knew how </em>, he gets all self deprecating about how that totally backfired but Nile just decides that she's gonna wife him yesterday and jumps his bones again. </p><p> </p><p>She stays a few days with him and Booker is over the moon about it. Nile isn't exactly big on going and being around other people, because the most humans she's ever interacted with at a time were like pairs of people on beaches or fishermen who encroached on their hunting grounds. But thankfully Booker isn't exactly crazy about bunches of people either, it's just him and his 5 friends: Lykon the centaur who helped him with PT after the fire and continues to thanklessly remind him that talking to other sentient beings is good for him; Yusuf and Nicolo, a shifter couple who he’s known since his family moved to town years and years ago; Andy who is Something Other Than Human but she won't tell anyone and her wife Quynh who smells like wood smoke all the time and makes Booker very uncomfortable.</p><p>After a few days though, he notices she seems to be missing her people though and doing a lot of staring at the bay, so he tells her she can leave if she needs to. Nile is thrilled because she is absolutely about to go get her momma and her brother and friends and introduce them like, look what I found! He is wonderful and I will be keeping him! </p><p> </p><p>But he thinks it's permanent. Booker gets all mopey and doesn't go out for the rest of the week. Nile is CONFUSED because like yeah she needs a sec to make arrangements for what will effectively be like a summer home move for her, but the weird heavy pit feeling that drew her to the rock by the shore is back and it somehow feels worse? And of course she goes to their spot but he isn't there.</p><p> </p><p>After 7 days Booker hears a bunch of commotion towards the base of the light house shortly before there's a very Important Sounding Knock. The kind of thing that you can identify because you live in a fantasy world and Certain Sounds at Certain Moments have Weight. He hustles down, hoping that whatever it is wont interfere too much with his planned evening of staring longingly at the water. Booker opens the door to see Nile looking absolutely lovely in one of the dresses he bought her and  4 other selkie people looking at him with varying degrees of curiosity (Jay and Dizzy) skepticism (Nile's brother) and appraisal (Nile's Mom) Nile also has a TON of fish and a very toothy smile on. "<em>We brought dinner!"</em></p><p> </p><p>Booker is gobsmacked.</p><p> </p><p>During the meal the whole thing unravels because Book can't fathom why she would want her family to meet him and is wondering about calling someone over to verify that all these beings are in fact in his home, which is more full now than it's even been. </p><p> </p><p>After he stutters through a bunch of questions and Nile brother has faceplanted into his dinner and Book is 90% sure that Nile’s mom is trying very hard not to laugh. Nile sighs <em> No, you Himbeaux, I love you and you're mine. I was just missing my fam, and I had to get some shit taken care of. Imma wife you and I can't just up and move outta the bay in one night. If I'm gonna live with you I needed to handle some shit.  </em></p><p>Booker stopped hearing at “wife” and his brain kicked back in at “live with you,” and Nile’s mom is definitely laughing now, Jay looks delighted, Dizzy is unimpressed and Niles brother is barking in distress under the table about how <em> selkies mate for life and how does he not know </em> <b> <em>any</em> </b> <em> of this and why is my new brother in law such an idiot what did I do to deserve this </em></p><p>Nile is once again full Ariel but it's this Ariel so Fuck yeah.</p><p><em>  </em>“</p><p> </p><p>-Fin</p><p>(PS: Booker and Nile invest in a very nice safe that fits an excellent tank with glorious salination and filtration to keep her skin safe and healthy but also let Booker have his bathtub back)</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yay Disney Princess sparkles and Shit!!!<br/>As it will always be, the BoN Group chat is completely  to blame for this and fr fr the highest of fives and the biggest of thanks to everyone else who chimed in that night!<br/>If ppl like, I can continue to Not Fic-ify things from the group chat for the genpop, XD<br/>&lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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